Monday, August 25, 2008

(an officer to look after the government monopolies, such as arrack and tobacco)

A Damsel Going to Early Mass

A Manila man

Una Yndia Natural, de Filipina

Un Mestizo Chino

A señorita walking to church in the daytime

A Spanish Mestiza of Manila

A country girl

An Old Woman

Rich mestizo

A Mandaya Woman

"Note the silver "patina" on her breast, and the load of armlets. The Mandaya women blacken their front teeth by holding a quid of tobacco and strongly acidic leaves between teeth and lips."[IN: 'The non-Christian peoples of the Philippine Islands' by DC Worcester, 1913, among the Cornell University South East Asia Visions Collection]

It's obviously an old site, but the People of the Philippines exhibition from the Museum of Anthropology at the California State University, East Bay, has some useful information, particularly about the distribution of ethnic groups across the Philippines.

The attractions of ethnographic costume illustration are augmented in a perverse way by the artist's determination to specify people's ethnic designation, reminding me a bit of some Mexican casta paintings I was looking at recently which really go all out to define percentages of this and that heritage.

The link to the Barbies in traditional Filipina wear was highly entertaining.

Huh? I thought the perversity - *if* there is any - was in (what I assume to be) the way the artist manages to give most of the subjects Hispanic features. In other words, I suspect that this was a bit of illustrative ethnic cleansing. [I should say that I'm just not sufficiently familiar with ethnic types of pre-1850 Philippines to be conclusive on this point; nor am I aware to what extent the ethnic groups had by then become 'mixed blood'] But it does look like there's a fair slice of artistic license here.

Well, I'm no expert on the ethnic varieties of the Philippines, but if nothing else there would be the "original" inhabitants, those of Chinese heritage, and those of Spanish heritage, and whatever mixes had occurred.

I was going by terms like Yndio, Mestiza/Mestizo, Mestizo Chino (I'm assuming that's half Chinese), and Spanish Mestiza. The Mexican casta paintings have a whole lot of variations besides Mestizo/Mestiza.

I agree that there is probably some attempt to Europeanize some of the features, but given that the Filipinos I've met had rather varied ancestry (and sometimes will mention that a relative has very Chinese features or something), I really can't say what Filipinos looked like in 1840. Probably someone more knowledgeable than I should speak up on the ethnic mix here.

The Barong Tagalog are still worn today by men for special occasions like weddings, etc., sometimes offices will also use them as uniforms, but the material will be less "spiffy" and not-so-complicated embroidery on the chest (and the material may be thicker since offices are air-conditioned, etc.)

Sad to say though, the baro at saya and terno are not as common for filipinas to wear in special events... I myself am Filipina and have yet to wear a baro't saya or terno in my entire life... while my dad, uncles, grandpa, male cousins have worn barongs tons of times! :(

Update: This evening I was chatting with an ethnomusicologist whose parents grew up in the Philippines, so I inquired whether he could shed any light on the ethnic distinctions here and whether these might have been done with an intent similar to the Mexican casta paintings. He said there was definitely the same kind of hierarchical classification in the Philippines, and that as one might expect, the "best" thing was to be all or mostly Spanish. We didn't talk about this at great length so I don't know how recently these distinctions were emphasized or whether they were more significant in particular places, such as urban areas.

As for casta paintings, last month I discovered there's a whole book on them. I refrained from buying it, but I do want to read it one of these days.

I appreciate how people from other countries admire our traditional costumes. The barong is still alive thanks to our late Pres. Magsaysay who encouraged Filipinos to wear them to formal events. As for the baro't saya, we girls only wear them during fiestas, field demos in school (esp. Araw ng Wika, or Filipino Language Day), or the occasional office theme party. I graduated wearing a white baro't saya with a sablay over it, and I felt so proud, not to mention cooler, since I don't have to wear a stuffy toga. I think it's no thanks to those young, rich local celebrities that the baro't saya isn't worn on normal days anymore- they ALWAYS think they have Spanish or American blood in them and snub the baro't saya in favor of "classier" Chanel & Valentino couture. The only rich celebrity I know who still dons Filipiniana costume is Imelda Marcos!

chappyness, all of the images (except the last 2) come from a hand-produced manuscript that has no title. If you read through the information at the end of the post, there's a link to the album at the New York Public Library (where it says 'NYPL'). I hope that helps.